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Year starts with shopping boom in New Zealand

Xinhua, May 14, 2015 Adjust font size:

New Zealanders spent large at the shops in the quarter ending March, sending retail sales up by a record amount, the government statistics agency announced Thursday.

The total sales value was 19.3 billion NZ dollars (14.54 billion U.S. dollars) in the March quarter, up 5.1 percent from the March 2014 quarter, according to Statistics New Zealand.

Fuel retailing, which was down due to lower prices, was the only retail industry to have lower sales.

Total retail sales volumes rose 7.4 percent year on year in the March quarter.

"This is the largest volume increase in dollar terms since this series began just over a decade ago," acting business indicators manager Tehseen Islam said in a statement.

Electrical and electronics stores had a very strong quarter with sales volumes up 8.9 percent, possibly due to the beginning of school year in January.

"This seems to mean that spending on things like laptops and tablets is having an impact on overall spending at the start of the school year," said Islam.

The volume of sales in core retail, which excluded the vehicle- related industries, rose a record 2.9 percent.

The trends for both total retail sales volumes and values had generally been rising since mid-2009. Endi